Flash storage devices use different sized erase blocks (that is, the size of data that can be erased and is written to), depending on the underlying flash technology (SLC or single level cell, MLC or multilevel cell, QLC or quad level cell, etc.). Furthermore, it is likely that the sizes of these blocks will not always be common divisors of each other; for example, upcoming flash memory may have block sizes of 24 MB and 64 MB. One challenge arises when it becomes necessary to replace a failed drive that has one erase block size (e.g. a 64 MB erase block) with a new drive that has a different erase block size (e.g. 24 MB). There are at least two problems to solve. First, upon identifying the replacement erase blocks; while the first replacement erase block in a group of replacement erase blocks will start with the same data as the failed block, any additional replacement erase blocks will start with data from the middle of the failed block. This is an issue for systems that represent the liveness of a block with data (e.g., metadata) written at the start of the block. Second, if the set of replacement blocks has more capacity than the original failed block, there is wastage of physical memory space, which goes unutilized. Therefore, there is a need in the art for a solution which overcomes the drawbacks described above.